Strategies for coping with stress, emotional control and occupational burnout among surgical nurses

Introduction and Objective . Nursing staff constitute 59% of the total number of health care workers worldwide – a total of 27.9 million people. The aim of the study is assessment of the prevalence of stress, including strategies for coping with stress, emotional control, and occupational burnout syndrome, as well as the effect of chronic stress on occupational burnout among surgical nurses. Materials and Method. The study included 323 surgical nurses employed in hospitals in the Kielce Province, Poland. Applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria from the study, ultimately, 110 nurses participated in the project. The research tools were standardized questionnaires: PSS-10 (Scale of Experienced Stress), Mini-COPE (Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced), CECS (Courtauld Emotional Control Scale), and LBQ (Link Burnout Questionnaire). Results . The highest mean level of occupational burnout observed was related with the scale of psychophysical exhaustion (raw values: 17.49 ± 5.46, stens: 5.53 ± 1.53), whereas the lowest mean result was related with the scale of the feeling of the lack of professional effectiveness (raw values: 13.16 ± 3.82, stens: 5:52 ± 1.65). While analyzing the relationships between the results of LBQ concerning psychophysical exhaustion and the results according to the PSS-10 and Mini-Cope scales, a statistically significant correlation was observed with the result of the PSS-10 (p < 0.001), concerning both raw and sten results. Conclusions. Stress is an important factor in the occurrence of the symptoms of occupational burnout in the work of surgical nurses. Two-fifths of scrub nurses experienced a high level of stress. A relationship was found between the feeling of lack of professional effectiveness and anxiety control. Persons who experienced a low own effectiveness strongly suppressed the feeling of anxiety.